


canticle

by robinauts



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Study, Gen, M/M, Repressed Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-17
Updated: 2019-05-17
Packaged: 2020-03-06 15:48:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18854164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/robinauts/pseuds/robinauts
Summary: On the hunt for the abducted party members, Molly takes watch and gets too inside his own head. There's a fight, and then there's sleep.(canon divergent au after episode 25)





	canticle

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [twisters chasing storms](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15173468) by [wayonwayout](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wayonwayout/pseuds/wayonwayout). 



> This fic was inspired by a recent episode confirming that Caleb was meant to be a shadow assassin. Since I am a predictable idiot, my immediate thought was "oh, so kind of like how Molly was also a supernatural hunter." And then all this tumbled out...
> 
> This fic takes heavy inspiration and some plot elements from one of my favorite CR2 fics, [twister chasing storms.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15173468) It was written in the week between episodes 25 and 26 and I think about that alternate timeline so much. **You do not need to read that fic to fully understand this one.** All you need to know is that Fjord, Jester, and Yasha were taken by the Empire, the hunt for them takes way longer than in canon, and Molly uses bloodhunter abilities to track Fjord after they find his pulled tusk on the trail. Other than those parts, this story is independent from that fic's plot, and isn't written to slot seamlessly into it. It's its own thing. You should definitely read that one, though.
> 
> Heads up: there is a brief fight scene on a bed where Molly gets choked. It is not romantic or sexual in nature at all. There's a more spoilery content description in the end notes if you need one. There is also a line where, in response to stress, Molly thinks about scratching at his arms. It's not graphically described or acted on.

It’s Molly’s turn to take watch. They’re sleeping in an inn tonight and Caleb’s silver thread is wound thrice around the room, but the four of them have taken no chances ever since the others were taken.

Beau has taken to sleeping sitting up. Molly bites at her in the waking hours about how it’s plainly a coping strategy to feel alert and in control when she’s so obviously _not,_ especially if she’s gonna be fighting with a sore neck _._ She snaps back and they viciously bicker, and that fills an afternoon.

He should feel bad. He doesn’t. She doesn’t either, at least not in any lasting ways. There’s no room for that now. There’s only room for the sharp comfort of meaningless fighting with someone who you’re stuck with, someone who’s digging their claws into the meat of you so you stay at their side as everything else spirals out of control.

Every night, she settles in ramrod straight, but her head still falls to her shoulder once she hits real sleep, and she twitches every so often. Sometimes her legs will kick wildly. That makes her blanket twist around near her feet, and Molly keeps having to tuck it back up around her waist. He would tease her about how she needs his help to stay tucked in, but she would inevitably ask why he’s bothering to tuck her in, and he doesn’t want to deal with that.

He blames Gustav for this damnable trait of his - the part of him that gains satisfaction and happiness from taking care of others in little ways. It feels silly. It feels dangerous, nowadays, outside of the circus, and especially now with their current circumstances.

Once, when Molly was still silent, Ornna had muttered to herself that Gustav fed strays so he could feel like he was paying penance. That Gustav had something he was running from. Molly had been in the tent with her, darning laundry to make himself useful, and her eyes had darted up at him a moment after she’d spoken.

By that point they had stopped treating him like a wild animal about to attack, and his silence often led to them forgetting he was there. Accepted, but not noticed. Molly had fixed that eventually. But at that time, he couldn’t bring himself to speak beyond the occasional croak of simple words (his repertoire: _yes, no, Mollymauk, don’t know, sorry, the circus, two silver)_ and what more, his body was preternaturally skilled at moving without noise or notice.

The twins had wanted to put a bell on him. Compared him to a cat, stalking the rafters for mice, jumping at things only he could see. A little hunting pet. That comparison had dissipated after he got loud and braying and obnoxious, bedecked himself in all the cheap finery he could get his hands on, but it came back in full force after he started taking care of bandits and highwaymen and anything else that would try to invade their camp.

He'd been their mouser. Yasha'd been their guard dog. They’d made a good team.

Molly misses her.

He feels a pang in his gut. He tries to shut it down. Missing Yasha, missing the circus (a place where he knew his role, knew they were family, knew what was up and what was down, the place he molded his identity around - not like this group he isn’t sure won’t splinter and fracture under one more piece of straw) will do nothing for him now, in the dead of night while his three new companions sleep around him.

All he can do is wait for dawn so they can keep following the trail of wagon tracks and whispers ever westward, guided by the dried blood on the filed-down tusk they’d found. In these hours between stopping and starting, the fear and nausea that wells up in Molly each time he concentrates on the tooth (with the plier marks in it - gods) is preferable to the _uselessness_ of sitting here.

Halting for the night drives him up the wall. There’s a manic impulse in him to scratch the skin off his arms for the agony of sitting still. He would pace, but the creaking of the floorboards would wake his restless companions, and he doesn’t want that. If he can’t have all his people safe and sound at his side, he can at least not disturb the remainders’ slumber.

In the dead of night, he keenly feels the difference between the part of him that wants to snap and growl and leap at anything that might harm a hair on his people’s heads and the part of him that wants to wrap them all up in blankets and tease them fondly and stroke their hair until they rest easy for once.

Sometimes they feel incompatible - is he a thing that fights, or a thing that coddles? A weapon or a nanny? Is he the unholy hunter Lucien was, all sharp teeth and sickening blood, or so puppyishly dependent on being in a herd that he’ll hinge his heart on a bunch of shady assholes with their own thorns and agendas?

And sometimes, like right now in this too-small inn room at the witching hour, they mesh so well he can’t sit still with the need to protect his own.

This is too much introspection. He needs air. He wants to go outside and walk the empty streets, wants to drink his mind away, wants to find the nearest willing body and lose himself in base cooperation.

He can’t do any of those things. He can’t leave Beau and Nott and Caleb sleeping and defenseless. Besides his soft heart, that’s breaking a lot of agreements, and their tentative trust in him is all that he has right now. Gustav is in jail, Yasha is in captivity, and the moon isn’t out tonight.

There’s a window on the other side of the room. Molly’s been sitting with his back to the door in order to face it, to see if anyone is looking in. It’s set above the lumpy, pathetic bed. Molly had been the one to sleep in it earlier tonight before he was woken for his watch, just like every night. He’s not hogging it: the others just keep refusing to take the bed, and he’s not one to turn down not sleeping on the floor.

Beau rebuffs them every time they offer the bed to her, and she’s so snappy nowadays that nobody wants to urge her to treat herself gently. Maybe they would put in the work if they all weren’t strung out on worry and determination and fear, but it’s been hard to be gentle. Especially for Beau and Caleb, who fear gentility at the best of times and steel themselves against it in times like these.

Like every night, Nott has crammed herself into the darkest, most shadowy corner of the room. She has the instinct to hide herself in little nooks and crannies. She makes herself small at any opportunity, shrinking back and baring her teeth whenever you advance on her retreat. She snaps back. She’s defensive to a fault while at the same time being a complete busybody. Molly sometimes can’t _stand_ her. She grates on him in ways that aren’t as easy as how Beau does, because at least Beau knows to leave well enough alone.

Molly knows Beau secretly thinks he’s a very good person, which is gratifying and makes him secretly like her a lot. He knows what a kid that’s been kicked ten too many times looks like, and Beau is that all over. Jester was giving Beau the sweetness and kindness that Beau never knew, but Molly can give the ribbing and teasing Beau can accept as companionship while also knowing when to pull his punches (the metric of which has changed recently, but Beau treats pain with pain, and Molly knows that his picking and prodding is preferable to Beau getting into bar brawls in every town they visit).

Nott is plainly still convinced he’s going to drag them into deep shit at a moment’s notice, which is rich considering whose pocket she’s made her home in. She’s got some shit going on, but Molly isn’t interested. He’s told everyone that he doesn’t give a shit about where they came from enough times to bore a priest, and while this takes the weight off of Beau and Caleb and Fjord’s shoulders somewhat, Nott tends to look affronted. She isn’t letting anyone pry, is actively pushing them away, but she wants people to deep down. She’s got some deep complexes going on about all her goblin stuff.

Nott projects her worldview onto everyone else, which Molly takes some offense to as someone who has had to work very hard to make his own. Her past defines her, so it _must_ have the same bearing on everyone else, which might be why she and Caleb are two birds of a feather. But Caleb is only so pushy about that in regards to himself: he had nodded and let Molly be, and he is still grateful for that.

But Nott - Nott had pushed and pushed, and the sulky petty parts of Molly still haven’t stopped being sore over that. There’s no place for that right now, of course, and Molly is trying to keep an eye on that sore spot so it doesn’t rear its head at an inopportune time. Until then, he’s ignoring it and that’s great. He loves ignoring things.

Sometimes Molly thinks Nott treats him a little like the overly-religious small town mothers would, back when he was handing out leaflets for the circus. He knows those suspicious stares very well: he’s a demon, a devil, will seduce the children in the night, spoil the crops, turn the town to sin. He’s well-versed in not letting it get to him, but he doesn’t know how she gets off on having that look in her eyes when she’s gone her whole life as a damn _goblin._ One would think there’s some solidarity earned by getting glared at by townsfolk, but no. Maybe all that comradery is going to Jester, and if that’s the case then Molly is fine with that: Jester deserves most things.

But not what she’s currently going through. Not that.

Caleb was the one who woke him up for his watch shift. Molly had suggested he take the now vacated spot in the bed, and Caleb had looked like he’d wanted to demur, to say _nein, it is not necessary, I will sleep on ze floor, ach I am so undeserving of anysing on zis earth, let me take every little opportunity to self-flagellate._ But before he could grovel, Molly had marched to the other side of the room and plopped himself down at his spot in front of the door with an air of finality, crossed his arms and gave a shit-eating grin, waiting to watch Caleb get into that bed.

Caleb had looked exasperated and opened his mouth to protest. Then he’d paused and seemed to realize that arguing about it would just draw attention to him, and, with a little roll of his eyes that would have been unnoticeable to someone without night vision (humans are so unsubtle sometimes, it’s cute), he’d crawled under the sheets.

Molly is very proud of his talent at gentle bullying.

That had been an hour or so ago. The lump of Caleb’s body is a shadow under the windowpane. He seems dead to the world - maybe it was the late hour, or the wear of the day (of the last week, the last month, the last decade), but sleep came easy to him tonight. Molly lets himself be happy about that.

The window. Fresh air. Get out of your head, Tealeaf.

He picks across the tiny little room with light feet, stepping over their packs and supplies with ease. They’ve had to carry the missing three’s things with them as well, and it’s slowed them down some. There was discussion of discarding what’s unnecessary to lighten the load on the horses, but they can’t bring themselves to sort through the others’ things. The intrusion, the invasion. It’s horrible to think about when they don’t know what’s happening to them at this very moment: Jester being tortured, and them throwing away her spare scarves.

And Molly knows Yasha carries the absolute bare minimum, anyway. Wouldn’t be worth the hassle.

Molly is careful not to disturb the bed as he leans over it to draw back the curtains. Caleb has pulled the sheets up over his head in a tight cocoon, and that twists a little smile on Molly’s face (Caleb has a talent at sparking those, because Molly’s an idiot). The rise and fall of the bed lump is steady and slow.

The latch is rusty and stubborn, and he has to fumble with it for a moment before it opens all the way. He flinches at the click of it in the silence of the room. He checks: Beau and Nott are still slumbering along. He glances down at Caleb, but his breathing is still even. Must be sleeping soundly. Good for him.

He draws the window open slowly, trying to minimize the grate of the glass against the frame. The cool night air comes rushing in across his face and it’s the hit of calm he needed after getting all caught up in his head.

He brings a knee up so he can lean further out of it, and then--

His whole world pitches and _tilts_ and his head is _slamming_ against the wooden foot of bed. Stars are flickering in his eyes as he gets dragged back down the bed and something blunt and pointy digs into his sternum - an elbow - his breath leaves him in a gasping rush, but that too is impeded by a rough hand seizing down over his mouth as a body bears down on his.

The surprise leaves him in an instant, and his body takes over (his body, his body, his body that _does_ things that he doesn’t want it to, that is unnatural and frightening, his body that saves his life and the lives of his loved ones - oh gods Caleb is sleeping right here on the bed) - his knee rams up into the gut of his attacker right as he heaves himself to the side, uses their combined weight to flip them both over, get himself on top, get the upper hand - he can’t reach the sword on his belt with how close their bodies are, but he can box the person on the sides of their head, disorient them, give him a moment to -

The attacker lunges back, not affected by the blow, and twists them over again, digging a bony knee into Molly’s lower belly, and _squeezes_ a hand around his throat. Their arms are caging him in such a way that he can’t reach their face so his nails scrabble at their arms, hoping to draw a little blood, but their arms are covered - he tries to spit out a curse in Infernal, but the hand is choking him too tightly to get any sound out, any _air_ out, tears are leaking out of his eyes as his windpipe is _crushed_ \- they’re two animals brawling and he’s the animal that is losing - he gnashes his teeth, snapping wildly, something _something_ anything -  he can’t see much beyond shapes in the darkness but he knows his vision is getting fuzzy and he curses because he will die without getting a sound out to warn the others - they will die in their sleep - he thrashes as wildly as he can to try and wake Caleb - fading - no, no, _no, no, no_ \- gods, _please_ let him wake Caleb before he -

The hand lets go.

He takes a great sucking gasp of air, and it overwhelms his lungs. He coughs, hacks, heaves (he hopes he doesn’t throw up, he _hates_ throwing up), takes gulp after gulp of sweet night air. The breaths shudder through him, and his hands dart up to feel at his freed throat, feel the skin safe there, satisfy the animal need to touch to be sure.

The attacker is still in the room.

In a flash he presses himself up against the wall, not recovered enough to stand but enough to stick to cover, a hand going to his sword hilt, and then his eyes catch up with his body. The person is on the other end of the bed from him. The shapes of Beau and Nott are still and quiet - the ruckus didn’t wake them - the person isn’t moving toward them - the person is shaking.

His mind catches up to his eyes.

Oh. Oh, gods.

“Caleb,” he murmurs, hand falling away from his sword. “Caleb, are you alright?”

His voice is scratchy and rough. Caleb flinches at it.

“Caleb, it’s okay.” He tries to keep his tone low, easy, something that won’t irritate his bruised vocal cords, won’t make it as apparent what Caleb just did in blind sleeping panic, in unconscious expertise.

“It’s not,” Caleb whispers harshly. “Mollymauk, it’s not.”

“Mr. Caleb, I’ve done much rougher things than this in a bed before,” Molly says, trying to break the tension.

Caleb says nothing.

“I’m okay. I’m fine. You’ve seen me get stabbed before, Caleb, this is nothing. You did nothing a bit of rest won’t fix. You were asleep, I get it. Honestly, I’m _thankful_ for your quick instincts. That’s who I want defending us from ambushes!” He’s rambling. Resorting to barker patter. Babbling. Caleb isn’t saying anything. Isn’t reacting. “I’m not mad at you. I’m not going to be mad at you for something you didn’t do intentionally, Caleb, that wouldn’t be fair to you. You weren’t even awake. I’ve never seen you sleep so soundly, sorry for disturbing you. You did a good job - I know something about subconscious reactions in a fight, and you did a top-notch job, honestly. Handy with the spells _and_ in close quarters combat, you’re a man of many talents as always Mr. Caleb, no room for me to be angry when I’m so impressed! I’m just glad we’re all okay, I was so worried my invisible attacker would go for you when they were done with me, I’m relieved in all honesty--”

A hand rests on his wrist. “Mr. Mollymauk. Breathe.” The words come with a puff of breath across his face. He’s been tugging at the ends of his hair.

“Ah. Good advice.” Suddenly he _hates_ how obviously vulnerable he is, the jitters that came over him, in front of Caleb’s big sad eyes. He doesn’t want Caleb to look at him freak out over this, that will only hurt Caleb more, that will only make Molly feel like an idiot. Needs to get Caleb and his hands away from him - push him back - so like a cornered animal, he throws out the barb, “It’s a good thing I can do that now, hm?”

Caleb doesn’t flinch. Molly is staring hard down at their hands puddled in his lap, but he can imagine the slow blink and furrow of brows that Caleb just did. He’s seen it before, when Beau and Caleb argue. He hears the slow breath. The deliberate choice to not engage, to not rise back. Caleb picks his battles.

He feels like a hysterical idiot. He hates it. He hates losing control of himself this way. He hates this situation, hates Caleb having power over how he feels. That’s why he hasn’t been letting himself look at Caleb as he wants to. He won’t let this sinking ship of a man take him down with him, no matter how sweet his smile or how clever his hands.

Hands that are gently touching his right now. Hands that nearly strangled him just a minute ago.

Maybe it’s strange that he’s mad at Caleb for how he himself feels, not for that.

His breath, still wheezing, slows somewhat. The adrenaline dials down. Exhaustion hits him like a tidal wave. He is left feeling hollowed out, throat bruised, Caleb a silent weight on the bed beside him.

He wants a drink.

“I am glad you’re alright,” Caleb says quietly. “I could not have forgiven myself if I had - if I had. I thought you were an intruder, I should have used my _brain--"_

Molly nods. “You stopped yourself at just the right time. That’s a point in your favor. No real harm done.”

Caleb doesn’t acknowledge that, as always. He never acknowledges when they say nice things about him, just ignores them like they’re passerby shouting their unrelated business on a city street. Molly wouldn’t get it if Caleb was anything like him, but Caleb is himself, so it makes sense. “You should go to sleep, Mollymauk. Rest. When we wake, maybe this will all seem like a bad dream.”

“It’s still my watch shift.”

Caleb shakes his head, stands, and gives him a look that makes Molly feel his meager two years - that Caleb is older. Has seen more. Wants to spare Molly.

All of them having been giving those sorts of looks to each other for the past few weeks: _I’m wiser, I’m stronger, I can bear more than you, I want to take the brunt of the pain we are going through, that we are about to go through._ It’s Beau sleeping upright. It’s Nott being her mother-hen self in all its qualities. It’s Molly browbeating Caleb to take the bed. It’s Caleb telling him to go back to it.

They all know Jester, Yasha, and Fjord are probably going through agonies every minute they race towards their cooling scent, every time they snap and bicker and commiserate, every time they have to pause to rest. In the first few panicked days, there had been muttered frantic speculation as to exactly what was being done to them, who had taken them and to what ends (especially after the tusk had been found), but eventually Molly had cracked and snarled that he couldn’t _stand_ having to hear such nauseating what-ifs, and he’s thinking of enough on his own thank you all _so much,_ let’s keep our imaginings to ourselves now if they won’t do anything to _help._

They’re harder now, sharper, with every day that passes between the abduction and the rescue (which will come, they will find them, they will get Molly’s new family back). But they’re gentler too, in the needed ways.

Beau keeps snapping at townsfolk who have no useful information for them, but she checks in on Caleb, pulls him aside where they have hushed little “Empire Kid” discussions. She makes Molly let her help him cook with their nice new rations. She’s knotting strings into braided cords, and Molly would bet his left foot that those are for the missing three.

Nott drinks and drinks and drinks, all throughout the day and never at night, but last week she’d dumped out her bag of trinkets and commanded Molly (who had been staring into the night for he can’t remember how long, convinced he’d seen red eyes in the thickets, that there were _things_ out in the brush and his blood was singing to go and _eradicate)_ to come sort them with her.

Molly doesn’t know how much he’s changed. He’s hyperaware of who he is, how he goes through the world, because that’s all he has, his identity and his coat. His soul and his dressings are his own, but this body, this strange uncanny body and its instincts and abilities and blood blood stinging ringing singing _blood_ \- those are Lucien’s. He can use it all to help his friends, but he can’t escape.

There’s a part of him that’s terrified that the stress and pressure of this ordeal is letting Lucien leak back into his brain. That every time Molly uses the bloodstained tusk to make his senses sing westward to the capital, acting the hunting dog, Lucien takes up more room in his brain, crawling back to life from the grave within the body. Molly laughs, sings, stitches more patterns onto his coat: all to drown him out, to pile more dirt on the grave, but maybe it isn’t enough. Maybe he’s doomed.

But he can’t run. These are his people. He has to protect him. He’ll give everything he has to keep them safe. To save them. Oh, gods, he will. He’ll throw himself upon the sword for them, and isn’t that terrifying. His soft heart will be his end, in whichever way comes first.

“Molly?” a soft voice says.

Caleb is still standing there in front of him, looking down at him where he’s been bent over his lap, head in hands, fingers twining through hair as he gets caught up in his own head. He would feel a hot rush of embarrassment, but he’s too tired and full of dread. His throat hurts. It’s late, and Yasha is gone, and the moon isn’t out.

“Please. For - for me, if nothing else. To make up for… your neck. I couldn’t bear it if I made you stay awake while I slept after injuring you like that.”

Molly knows Caleb is intentionally tugging on his pliable heartstrings. Manipulating him, even if to a good end (this time). He should be damn terrified that Caleb knows that if he presents an obvious way for Molly to take care of him, soothe a pathetic look off his face, Molly will seize the bait with greedy hands.

But when Molly nods, Caleb’s face melts into relief, and Molly is weak and shaky right now, so he lets that satisfaction wash over him. It feels good. He just wants to feel good.

Bony hands push gently at his shoulders, urging him to lay back on the bed, and since Beau and Nott are asleep he lets himself be maneuvered like a doll. A child. How Gustav had treated him that first night he had stumbled in from the woods, catatonic.

He knows that Caleb will turn this over in his head until the handprint bruises on his throat fade, trying to calculate how much he owes Molly for accidentally choking him out, trying to quantify his own sense of guilt and need for penance. But Molly is too tired to care about how looking weak in front of Caleb will add fuel to that ever-burning fire of self loathing.

Molly is selfish, and he is tired, and Caleb is pulling up the blankets around him now, smoothing them down the bed, the length of his body, from where they had gotten twisted up in their struggle mere minutes ago.

The truly foolish part of Molly wishes Caleb would crawl in beside him, be a warm beloved body, wrap around him and weigh him down securely. Molly is tired, so for a little sleepy moment he lets himself want all the things he knows Caleb can never give him.

It aches.

“Get a little more rest, Mr. Mollymauk,” he hears Caleb murmur. A hand brushes his hair back from his face, and a shroud of heavy warmth settles in his mind. He has an inkling Caleb is casting a charm on him to ease him to sleep, but it’s okay. He doesn’t care.

He’s slipped down most of the way when he thinks he feels hair tickling his face, a breath of warm air against his forehead - two, three - a brush of skin - and then it’s gone.

The last thing he hears is, “I beg your forgiveness, Mollymauk. For everything.”

Then: blissful sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> CONTENT WARNING: Molly leans across the bed where Caleb is sleeping to open a window. This wakes Caleb up, and he thinks Molly is an intruder sneaking in. He does not know it is Molly: it's his training taking over. Caleb tackles Molly then covers his mouth with his hand. Molly flips them over and boxes Caleb's ears. Caleb flips them over again and starts choking Molly. He realizes it's Molly before Molly can black out, and lets him go immediately. Caleb also uses a sleep charm on Molly at the very end which Molly doesn't object to, which I wrote to be comparable to Molly using Charm Person as in canon, but I'm mentioning it just in case.
> 
> Title is from the Simon & Garfunkel song.
> 
> Thanks for reading my self indulgence! Thank you to friends who read over this for me and tolerate my rambling about this grape bitch who died a year ago. Triple thanks if you leave a kudos or a comment!
> 
> You can find me on tumblr [@mollyglock](https://mollyglock.tumblr.com/) and on twitter [@plounce.](https://twitter.com/plounce) I'm always down to cry about how much I love Caduceus and how Beaujester Real


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